Prophecy - Book 5 of Twilight Saga (Fan Fiction)

Summary:
Refusing to follow the path laid out for her, Nessie unearths a plot that threatens her very existence. Once again the Olympic Coven must take a stand... but who can they trust? Gripping spin-off in the Twilight Saga Series as Bella and Edward struggle to keep their family together in a desperate bid to survive.

Notes:
I would love any feedback at all on the Prophecy; something that i have loved writing and want to develop to be as good as it can be!!

3. Chapter 3: Benjamin

Had it not been for the antique clock that had hung in the hallway for all of my twenty-three years, I don’t think I would have known how long I had till ‘it happened’. It was only recently that one of the parts had seized up, prompting me to buy a digital projection clock; the ones with the temperature and a guess at the weather forecast along the bottom in tiny red illuminated letters. My father had grunted. Such a small item didn’t warrant anything more. My mother on the other hand had told me to take the thing to my room. ‘What good were such technological items when they caused a blot on the scenery?’ She’d said. I had responded that perhaps she was blind and the hallway was overdue for a refurb but despite our difference of opinion, I had placed it up on the bookcase projecting a variety of information onto the ceiling that I could stare at from the sofa in the lounge through the double doors.

It was just as well for the clock really, because at the point I foresaw my life being taken from me, all I could take from the vision were tiny little numbers that showed on the corner of the room just below the burglar alarm. 18th September 2014. I had three months to somehow prevent my own death.

That’s when the clock really started ticking.

By the end of the first week, I had successfully convinced my parents that I was completely crazy, and it was only when our voices were raised over a bowl of jambalaya that my father had said ‘you’ll end up in Biloxi Mental Institute like your Great Aunt Mary.’

Interesting.

Then I started researching the family.

As it turned out, Mary Alice Brandon was born in 1902 raised in my hometown of Biloxi. Before her twenty-first birthday she was admitted to the asylum on the basis of schizophrenia, which she called psychic but they labeled as clinically insane. That would be her last home. She died less than a year later.

Back home, they rarely referenced her. She was born too many generations ago to be remembered first hand, and no one talks openly about their family nut-job, even an ancestral one. Only her mysterious death had been brought up once, over Halloween, and not for any of the right reasons. My uncle Lionel, an old fellow who’d served in the army, once claimed that she never died as they’d never recovered the body. We’d all laughed and joked that maybe he had the strange ‘Brandon’ genes as well. My father later blamed it on Uncle Lionel’s stint in Vietnam. Dad was into the sciences and was a strong believer that everything stemmed from cause and effect, and everything had a scientific explanation. Perhaps it was that which troubled him so much when I announced that I could see the future. No logical explanation can ever justify that.

“Mary Brandon you say?” A stern looking woman said. Her badge read ‘Rita’ with ‘Biloxi Heath’ etched below in small neat letters. She was the facility’s president with a strange resemblance to my junior school headmistress; thick eyebrows, wirery black hair and sun spots dappled across her hands. Immediately I felt like I was back in second grade: small for my age, desperately compliant and borderline introvert, with nerves radiating like cactus spikes from across the desk. Not the strongest mix of ingredients for high school survival and certainly not the right genes to investigate with. Yet here I was; sitting in the mental institute that had claimed the life of my Aunt Mary nearly a century ago.

Externally they had improved the appearance of the place since the photo that was posted on their website. The bricks had each been cleaned and re-pointed, the building was spacious and the grounds well kept with neat walled gardens for the patients to enjoy. From what I saw it of the inmates, it seemed that they’d put their best ones on show.

Rita was quiet while she exhausted the computer database and then sighed as she started manually searching an old record book while I sweated in the hot, humid room.

“An ancestor you say?”

“Yes, my father’s Great Aunt.”

She peered at me over her spectacles.

“It’s for a school project,” I added. “I’m setting an assignment for the students and want to give them an example of how to conduct their research.”

“You’re the teacher?” Eyebrows raised.

I felt like a schoolboy again.

“I want the students to demonstrate a member of their family that they admire.”

She took of her glasses and sighed. “It says here that she died whilst at this facility,” she said, tapping the book. “She was twenty-one, no education, no achievements to mention, and if there were any they would have been noted here, we pride ourselves on rewarding our—.“

“I’m sure you do.” I checked my watch. “But I am trying to build a picture of her successes, and learn why she was who she was.”

She looked at me for a long time.

“Is there nothing you can tell me at all?” I said. “Nothing about her extra abilities?”

More raised eyebrows and this time the start of a frown which interrupted the smoking wrinkles around her puckered lips.

“We only have her name, the date she was admitted and the doctor who signed her off. Dr Slay. In fact he ended up here himself later in life. I suppose that is the greatest compliment. At least he sent her somewhere that he would consider—.“

“I know. The facility is great. I’ll be sure to tell my future children in case I turn doo-lally later in life.”

She snapped the book shut. “All I’m saying Mr Brandon, is that I don’t think there is anything commendable that we can offer you about this patient,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t you have any other family members to make an example out of?”

I looked out of the window. It was a nice day and there were plenty of inhabitants enjoying the sunshine. “I think you’re right. I’ll just have to write about someone else.”

She smiled, no teeth. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been of more help.”

I stood up and shook her hand. “You tried your hardest,” I said, in a tone that bordered on sarcastic.

I didn’t head straight to my car. Outside there were some benches which overlooked the gardens. Three people sat together speaking quietly on one side and to the other was a young lady. Thirty max. Given her age, I decided against approaching her and made my way to where an older man sat between two middle-aged women. They seemed compus-mentus, but I soon established that they thought they were being interviewed for the local breakfast show on the merits of living in Disney Land. Cuckoo or what? But they were able to pronounce all the words clearly and orderly and the old guy with the receding hairline that was merging with his bald patch even threw in the odd joke, but of course they had no clue about Mary Brandon. She was long gone before their time. She would have died before any inhabitant of this facility was even conceived.

When I followed one lady’s gaze, she was staring straight at a cemetery, which fringed the gardens; an unsubtle and untimely reminder of where I was headed, sooner than anyone thought.

I had given up and was twisting the key to my car in the driver’s door when I saw an old-timer approach. At first I assumed he was another inhabitant, who had probably mistaken me for Elvis, but then he announced he was the janitor to no one in particular and proceeded to sweep the gravel with a broom.

I nodded and tried to ignore him politely and get on my way. I was done talking, and had no ambition to strike up any more conversation.

“What do you want?” He said, starry eyed, walking in my direction.

I looked behind me but the car lot was empty.

“You, boy,” he said. “What do you want here?” There was mounting aggression in his voice.

I got into the car, put the key in the ignition and attempted to pull away, but he was crossing in front of the hood.

“I know what happened,” he said, and I pressed my foot firmly on the brake. Then I wound down the window.

“They all knew about her premonitions you know, but they covered it up. They covered her up. Can’t have something like that tarnishing the place.”

“Something like what?” I said. How did he know what I was even here for?

“She wasn’t crazy. She had the gift,” he continued.

“I know, that’s what I’m trying to find out about,” I said, wiping the beads of sweat off my brow. It was hotter out here than back in the building. “Do you know about her?” I said. The a/c hadn’t kicked in and hair dryer heat blew from the vents, like fire-breathing dragons.

He carried on as if he never heard me. “She never died you know. They said she did to cover their tracks, but she never did.” He swung his head from side to side, like an exaggerated twitch.

“So, if she never died here, where did she go?” I said. She escaped? Perhaps if I could follow her path, it would lead me to her grandchildren or something? Some long lost cousins I never knew about? They might be able to help me.

“Do you know if she had any family of her own?” I said.

“No family. Cold one.”

“Excuse me?”

“She could not bear children… in her state.”

“In what state? How did she escape? What was so bad?”

He started shaking his head again, back and forth, back and forth.

“Please, if there’s anything you can tell me, I would really appreciate it. I need to find out about her. It would help me tremendously if you could shed any light on her.”

“Cool it,” I said. “I was only asking. I’m not threatening you at all. You’ve been very helpful.”

“She is a cold one,” he said, again, and this time he was shouting. “She is very bad. Very, very bad. You stay away from her. You stay away from Forks.”

I killed the engine, but it seemed to set him off. He was swinging his arms around his body, acting insane. Maybe he was a patient who thought he was the janitor? Surely he wasn’t of stable mind?

“What’s Forks?” I said. “Is that a place?” I tried to recall my geography assignment from senior year, which was based upon a weekend field trip up in Seattle; a long trek to count blades of grass from which I got very average marks. “Is that where her family are? Is that where she’s buried?”

“Of course not,” he said, his eyes dancing. “No grave. No children. I told you. No children. Not in her state.”

“Then what’s in Forks?”

“She lives on.”

“What?” I said. The guy was clearly deranged. “You know that would make her the oldest woman alive.” I shook my head and started up the engine again.

“Oldest woman; still a girl.”

“Thanks anyway,” I said, rolling up the window. Crazy people. “You be careful now old man.”

“You stay away from Forks,” he repeated as I started to pull away. Behind me a look of alarm washed over his leathered face.

‘Cold one,’ was the last thing I heard before I wound up my window fully and got the hell out of that place.